Just Sayin'. . .

One would think, in a land where one of the primary seasons is officially named "Rainy," some attention would be paid, when designing/building roads, to the concept of "drainage."

. . .and Things That Go Bump In the Night

Mom's insomnia is getting worse. It started a while ago with her getting up around 11:30 or so and sitting for 10-15 minutes and then going back to bed and has progressed to where she now gets up almost every night, like clockwork, an hour and a half after going to bed, then another hour after returning to bed and then again sometime in the middle of the night to sit on the couch and read for an hour or so. As a result, she's been getting up later and later in the morning. Yesterday she didn't rise 'til after noon.

Last night was the worst. She promised, as she was heading off to bed, to stay there and not come out. An hour later, there she was comin' 'roun' the corner. When I informed her she had just set a new record, she turned around and went right back. Half an hour later she was out again. This time she stayed and read her book. An hour and a half later, when she had to go to the bathroom, I said "You really should be in bed. Don't come back just to keep me company." She said, "Yeah, that's probably a good idea." And went.

Until. . .

Three o'clock in the morning. I hear noises outside my door. Lights go on. Lights go off. Bump. Bumpity-bump. I crack my door just enough to peer out. Bedroom lights on. Bedroom lights off. Bump. Bump. Hall lights on. Hall lights off. Bumpity-bump. Kitchen lights on. Kitchen lights off. She's apparently trying to fix herself a snack. In the dark. Using the lights just to get her bearings and then turning them off again and navigating by feel as her walker hits the walls.

And then silence. And darkness. I think she's gone back to her room. In the morning I find parts of the kitchen rearranged. By ten she's up, dressed and her bed is made.

She remembers nothing of her little walkabout.

Aquae Vitae

It's amazing how quickly the plants have responded to the rain. The tomatoes, which were all brown and shrivelly and looking ready to fall over, are now green and tall and blossoming again. So: homegrown tomatoes second crop coming up!

The peppers, which never looked as bad as the tomatoes, are coming back in again, too. More peppers and more blossoms, both.

The mangoes are about done for the season. It's finally gotten to the point where there are fewer falling each night (even after a storm) than the number I can peel and cube in a day. There is one very large bag in the freezer freezer (sort of a strategic reserve), three small bags in the refrigerator freezer, a bowl of fresh cubed in the refrigerator for immediate access along with a large bowl of mango salsa. There are still about three dozen on the counter waiting to be peeled and chopped. And none of this counts the dozens we have given away already. There's maybe a dozen or two left on the tree.

The funny thing is, we're about a month early. The next door neighbor's mango is just starting to ripen. Ditto for other trees in town. We have no idea what makes our little 20 x 20 micro-climate different.

We're just enjoying the results.

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

It's Rainy Season!!

Just like that. The weather reports say so. The hour-and-a-half long with 60-mile-per-hour wind lightning storm last evening was merely confirmation. The rain came down in swirling sheets, blasting through the screens in the lanai and pounding against the glass doors to the living room. It was glorious (and just a little scary with the windows/doors rattling away. Even so, I had to point out to Mom that it was raining. "Is that why it's all gray out there?"

The storm knocked 22 mangoes from the tree. Then it was over--just like that--the setting sun came out and I went out to pick them up. The rabbit was out there. I explained to him what I was doing but he just sat and watched.

The weather lady promises more of the same every day for the next week at least.

The Longest Day . . .

. . .was cut short by a collection of towering, rolling, flat-bottomed thunderheads that came from the east and covered the land faster than the sun could reach the horizon. Distant lightning and muted thunder promised rain--somewhere. But then, it's done this every day for the past week and lied about the rain each time. We're supposed to be into the rainy season now.

We did finally get a fifteen minute shower which is so useless as to be just an insulting tease.

Mom has got a bee in her bonnet about trimming a bush which is growing in front of the dining room window. She says she can't see anything out the window now, which is true, but when it is trimmed the situation won't change since A.) she can hardly see anything now as it is, and B.) when the window is cleared there is nothing out there but the front lawn, the road and an occasional car going by. Nevertheless.

When I caught up with her she had the window open and was trying to remove the screen so she could reach through with a pair of scissors and trim the bush from inside. She said she didn't have the energy to go outside and do it.

Mango Mania

We are buried in a mango glut this year. At the beginning of the season, when the first fruit were just showing, we estimated over a hundred on the tree. That may have been a little low. My brother takes anywhere from two to six with him to work almost every day as gifts to his co-workers. That only leaves another half dozen on the counter at any one time. I need to replenish the mango salsa again. Also mango iced tea. And cold bite-size chunks to nibble on or put with ice cream.

We don't technically pick the mangoes. We wait 'til they fall off the tree dead ripe. And we leave any the birds/bugs/rabbit get to where they lie.

There're enough to go around for everybody/-thing this year.

Art Imitates Life

The rabbit was in the backyard again sitting perfectly still. It was toward the far back of the yard and I knew Mom couldn't see it from the couch and, normally, I wouldn't ask her to get up just for a rabbit but she stood up on her own to go get a drink so I called her over to the lanai door/window.

"See that?" I asked.

"Oh, it's the bunny! Hello, Mr. Rabbit. Look how still he's sitting, not moving at all." Which was all accurate and true and pretty perceptive for someone as blind as she's getting to be. Except . . ..

She was facing the wrong direction. She was looking about 30 degrees to the right of where the rabbit actually was. So I stood behind her and looked over her head along her line of sight.

She was staring at a life-size white ceramic garden statue rabbit. Which she had made years and years ago.

When I pointed that out to her and showed her where the real (chocolate brown) rabbit was, she laughed and said it was a good thing I was there. In her defense, while she was looking the live rabbit didn't move any more than the sculpted one. (Although about ten minutes later I did see it nibbling at the lowest leaves of the lemon tree.)

Accidental Home Remodelling

My brother was out whacking weeds the other day and apparently uncovered the rabbit's home. There's a small hole under the pineapple palm (so named because it resembles an overgrown pineapple sitting by the driveway). There're some tufts of grayish fur at the entrance and, if you poke gently at the opening, something pushes back. Our supposition is little bunnies but we haven't seen them directly, yet. My brother recovered the hole with some whacked weeds to try to maintain the camouflage. We'll see if it works.

91

It's Mom's birthday today. She's 91 years old. Ninety-one. Doesn't look a day over 88.

We didn't get her any real presents per se. She doesn't need anything and doesn't want anything and, in fact, keeps trying to give stuff away. So, instead, we gave her cards and I made breakfast (brunch really by the time she got up and moving). Blueberry pancakes. I put a lot more blueberries in the batter than I thought I had done. The batter in the griddle rose up to envelop the berries and I could see (and smell) them cooking up, popping and spreading berry juice throughout the pancakes as they cooked. Yum.

After that my brother went out and bought a pound of fresh shrimp so this evening's birthday dinner will be shrimp fettuccine alfredo. And a cake. None of us will need to eat again until next week when we get to do it all again for his birthday.

Wildlife Beyond the Screen

Wow!! Mockingbirds really, really, really hate snakes. Two of them were in the backyard this weekend pouncing on our poor resident slitherer, grabbing it and even lifting it slightly off the ground. It managed to get into some tall grass under a palm tree and the birds eventually gave up and went away.

Two minutes later the rabbit was out back nibbling on the lawn. The rabbit's too large to worry about the snake but, then so are the birds, although it could, and probably would gladly, eat an egg or two. Mostly I think it gets by on the never diminishing lizard population.

2:27 A.M.

The explosion rattled the windows and doors and echoed through the neighborhood. It was sudden and sharp and over in a couple of seconds. It caused an adrenaline surge because it was a surprise in spite of the fact we had been warned hours ahead of time.

It was Shuttle Endeavour returning from the International Space Station to Kennedy Space Center breaking the sound barrier as it descended southwest across the coast before turning north above the Everglades and lining up with the runway somewhere near Fort Lauderdale for the final glide in.

From there it goes to a museum on the west coast. Atlantis goes up next month and when it returns we will have no manned space capacity at all. Which is where we were in 1960. Except then the future was still ahead of us and we were just at the start of our big adventure.